The other question this tragedy brings up (again, unfortunately) is how do we protect ourselves from monsters like this without sacrificing some of our freedoms?

You're right, it cannot be done, and it's idiocy to try; we seem to try nonetheless. If we make our rules based on the hideous actions of those who entirely lack a moral compass, all we achieve is putting limits on the just people who make up the vast majority of the population.

In this country we spend trillions of dollars to regulate for things that, in the end, we cannot truly be protected from.

We deinstitutionalized the mentally ill back in the 80s. That's why you can now bump into some homeless person on the street who couldn't tell you the difference between a dime and a dollar, talking to themselves while pushing around a cart full of trash. Reagan opened up the state mental hospitals under prodding from the ACLU and we started treating the mentally ill with drugs instead of institutionalizing them. Too bad drug therapy doesn't work across the board. I'm sure it creates fat profits for Big Pharma, given how many depression and anxiety drugs are advertised (almost constantly). Many of those state mental hospitals were horrific places. It's a complex issue that would require tax dollars and political cohesion to solve. In other words, ain't gonna happen. What happened in Connecticut? Get used to it.

But to the people who delude themselves into thinking that the ease of access of guns in this country does not exacerbate greatly the ability of crazies to go on mass killing sprees like this one...

Your'e ****ing stupid, and i hope you get erased from the gene pool soon.

Obviously you are young and have zero experience. Why don't you go get yourself a plane ticket and move to Saudi Arabia. Permanently. The sad part is, you won't. There will come a point in your life when you need to call 911 and need them there in less than 2 seconds. Good Luck with that.

Obviously you are young and have zero experience. Why don't you go get yourself a plane ticket and move to Saudi Arabia. Permanently. The sad part is, you won't. There will come a point in your life when you need to call 911 and need them there in less than 2 seconds. Good Luck with that.

DUI people kill more than guns by far. Lets get rid of cars.
Take it however you want. But when someone blames the gun, time to get on the soapbox. This country exists because of guns. Oversimplified? Maybe. But still true.

DUI people kill more than guns by far. Lets get rid of cars.
Take it however you want. But when someone blames the gun, time to get on the soapbox. This country exists because of guns. Oversimplified? Maybe. But still true.

This is warped analogy. By your logic you're saying we shouldn't regulate and crack down on driving while drunk.

You're failing to distinguish between an accident and violence. Car accidents happen, when alcohol is involved it's no longer an accident. Guns accidentally kill some people, but when you shoot someone, it is not an accident.

I think we should start a national conversation on the question: Are we too violent, as a culture? Look at our movies? Our video games? Our TV shows? If you were to be able to stand back, without any connection to this country (as if you were an alien from another planet) and just look at what we are doing in America, I think you'd be shocked at how violent we are. That's got to be a part of these events. Aren't we teaching that violence is the answer to many problems? Is that our message?

I think we should start a national conversation on the question: Are we too violent, as a culture? Look at our movies? Our video games? Our TV shows? If you were to be able to stand back, without any connection to this country (as if you were an alien from another planet) and just look at what we are doing in America, I think you'd be shocked at how violent we are. That's got to be a part of these events. Aren't we teaching that violence is the answer to many problems? Is that our message?

It is an interesting topic for conversation. There is a fine line between showcasing the effects of violence and reveling in violence. I think there are benefits to the former, and there are certainly consequences that arise from the latter.

DUI people kill more than guns by far. Lets get rid of cars.
Take it however you want. But when someone blames the gun, time to get on the soapbox. This country exists because of guns. Oversimplified? Maybe. But still true.

I see this car accident argument often. The difference, of course, is the automobiles primary design utility is transportation, while the guns primary design utility is to kill. If you can't see why this comparison is not valid, you are clueless.
If this is a subject you are passionate about I suggest you come up with a less intellectually dishonest argument then this crap.

Mental health is the issue. Addressing that would benefit not only cases involving these mass murders in the public sphere, but also serial killings and domestic terrorism, things that a handgun ban would have little-to-no effect on.

I see this car accident argument often. The difference, of course, is the automobiles primary design utility is transportation, while the guns primary design utility is to kill. If you can't see why this comparison is not valid, you are clueless.
If this is a subject you are passionate about I suggest you come up with a less intellectually dishonest argument then this crap.

possibly the best post in 18 pages. Its amazing that a tragedy like this cannot at least open the dialog for smarter gun regulation. Everyone assumes that the desired outcome is to just get rid of guns altogether. Hardly. There is a happy medium where is there is a meaningful reduction (but unfortunately not elimination) of these tragedies and law abiding citizens can have guns. Just like with other behaviors, incentives can be provided for or against those activities.

We deinstitutionalized the mentally ill back in the 80s. That's why you can now bump into some homeless person on the street who couldn't tell you the difference between a dime and a dollar, talking to themselves while pushing around a cart full of trash. Reagan opened up the state mental hospitals under prodding from the ACLU and we started treating the mentally ill with drugs instead of institutionalizing them. Too bad drug therapy doesn't work across the board. I'm sure it creates fat profits for Big Pharma, given how many depression and anxiety drugs are advertised (almost constantly). Many of those state mental hospitals were horrific places. It's a complex issue that would require tax dollars and political cohesion to solve. In other words, ain't gonna happen. What happened in Connecticut? Get used to it.

The problem with medication based therapy is that not only are there no fail-safes in case of failed therapy there is also no way to prevent self-discontinuation which is very common and a source of a large number of criminal offences committed by people who are known to be severely mentally ill.

Another factor is of course the glorification of violence - not through computer games, movies and literature, but through the news media. Aside from a few key political figures and a few disgraced celebrities, nobody gets more media attention than criminals and the more heinous the crimes the more attention is given. Donate a kidney to save the life of someone you don't know and it will maybe get a mention in a small local newspaper, save 4 children from a burning house and it will get a mention in the regional paper with a photo and a blurb on local tv news as human interest. Murder 20 children and your face, name and every aspect of your life will be on the front of every national news outlet for weeks.

The amount of news coverage for Newtown is more than the combined media coverage of every single of the roughly 32.000 deaths that will occur in traffic this year in the US. The murderer of those children will be the end of this year have his name mentioned more in the news than the prime ministers of France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan combined.

Supposedly the average number of people killed in a shooting rampage stopped by police is 14+.....just over 2 when it is stopped by private citizens who are armed

But right now only a few citizens are armed. You guys are talking about making it easier for everyone to carry. Those stats might change into 3-4 more people killed by crossfire etc. Also police respond to so many more then a citizen so comparing the two seems like a bit of a reach to me.

But an interesting stat if its accurate.

Still if i heard shooting, then i run out, and 3 people have guns it would be tough to know who to shoot. All 3 could be gunman, or 2 of them, or none of them.

comparing cars to guns is sort of lame. Why not just say gun deaths acceptable because we want to keep our guns. Selfish but honestly its the truth. Many people would say I want to protect myself if the need arise, and if that means guns are out there for someone to use in a mass killing so be it. People just afraid to admit they are selfish and you want what you want regardless of the repercussions. Trying to tie it to automobiles is just a way of finding something everyone uses for life in the modern world so you can avoid saying I want to keep my guns and little kids getting shot doesn't change that. So instead gun people say well if we were all armed it would be safer. If the principal had an ak-47 things would be different. Or hey cars kill more people lets all ride horses......and carry a shotgun. lol.

I like my few firearms because if someone comes into my house i can shoot them. Or if once a blue moon arises and my friends want to go shoot birds i have a shotgun to do it. Some crazy killing kids should not change those rights so really there is no way to get guns out of populace. Also there is no way we aren't driving our cars. So we will just have to deal with it like a sane nation would.

Safer cars, DUI enforcement, better driver training, more security at schools, try and help strange loners more instead of letting them fall through cracks etc. And yes maybe even saying that every school will have a few teachers or principals with access to a firearm if some mass shooting starts going down. Can of worms right there though but maybe it could help. For sure though we need to make schools harder for people who dont belong there to get into. The question is where does the money come from schools already spending every penny they get.

I think we should start a national conversation on the question: Are we too violent, as a culture? Look at our movies? Our video games? Our TV shows? If you were to be able to stand back, without any connection to this country (as if you were an alien from another planet) and just look at what we are doing in America, I think you'd be shocked at how violent we are. That's got to be a part of these events. Aren't we teaching that violence is the answer to many problems? Is that our message?

Violence" An American Tradition is a pretty interesting documentary which chronicled the history of cultural violence. It was on HBO a while back. Definitely worth watching (I believe it's uploaded to Youtube).

This is warped analogy. By your logic you're saying we shouldn't regulate and crack down on driving while drunk.

You're failing to distinguish between an accident and violence. Car accidents happen, when alcohol is involved it's no longer an accident. Guns accidentally kill some people, but when you shoot someone, it is not an accident.

Sane responsible people owning guns is not the problem...just as sober responsible people are not the problem with DUI deaths. Psychos obtaining guns is the problem...but keep in mind this clown stole the guns he used. He didn't buy them at a gun show, or gun/pawn shop.

another problem is this psycho had no criminal record...and we cannot just put whack job people like him in the looney bin because he acted weird prior to his killing spree.

As a gun owner, I am responsible...I know that every round that is fired by me, I am going to be held accountable for...and God forbid the day comes that I have to shoot someone and they die as a result...I understand that I will probably be charged with murder until the evidence proves otherwise....the problem is that these nut jobs don't care about laws, or accountability.

Safe sober drivers shouldn't be punished because some idiot drives drunk, nor should safe responsible gun owners be punished because some psycho decides to steal a few guns and go on a killing spree.

But right now only a few citizens are armed. You guys are talking about making it easier for everyone to carry. Those stats might change into 3-4 more people killed by crossfire etc. Also police respond to so many more then a citizen so comparing the two seems like a bit of a reach to me.

But an interesting stat if its accurate.

Still if i heard shooting, then i run out, and 3 people have guns it would be tough to know who to shoot. All 3 could be gunman, or 2 of them, or none of them.

The difference is that an armed citizen could respond immediately to a shooting rampage, the cops take longer to get there and assess the situation waiting on SWAT possibly, etc......

There was a mass murder in a Luby's several years ago...and they interviewed a woman whose parents were killed in it....she was a legal gun owner who had left her gun in her vehicle as she obeyed the sign on the front door that said "no guns allowed". She had just come out of the restroom approximately one minute before the shooting rampage started, and the perps hadn't noticed her...she would have had a clear shot at them, and could have dropped them...if only.

imagine if the principal or one of the teachers/assistants were concealed carriers? This mother****er probably doesn't kill a solitary child as he'd have been dropped liked 3rd period French class as soon as he drew his weapon....

I see many people talking about the fact that we need to do better at diagnosing and treating people with mental illness. It's a nice thought, but unless I missed it, no one has really proposed a real solution. Yay, we can start the discussion on it, but mental illness is a health issue, and it's not going to be a simple or quick fix, and it definitely won't be free. Our healthcare system is a shambles as it is. Are people actually proposing putting more money into the healthcare system to deal with this?

I see a lot of people saying we should be arming teachers and principals or beefing up security. I already stated in another thread that I find it hard to believe that you'd find teachers being willing to work in those conditions. Sooo...what? Are we going to just ask for volunteer teachers to pack heat? Are we going to require it? Are we going to pay them for the training needed? Cutthemdown responded that we should fire the worst teacher and hire a security guard and just move that teacher's kids to another classroom, as if class size were not already a big problem. Are we really proposing adding an "armed security" line item to school budgets that are already stretched to the limit?

For all his lunacy, Cut has it right about the Second Amendment folks...they're too cowardly to simply come out and say "a few innocent victims is acceptable collateral damage for my right to own a gun." They camouflage it in analogies to car accidents, knife slayings and bombings, neglecting the fact that, in many cases it takes a completely different psychological profile to pull a trigger than it does to build a bomb or slit a throat. To say that this killer in Connecticut would have just built a bomb or gone on a knife rampage if he couldn't have gotten his hands on some guns is not only over-simplifying a complex situation, it's jumping to a conclusion that no medical professional would...but then again, there goes science again, injecting facts into a discussion fueled by emotions.

I also find it troubling that there are people still viewing this as an isolated incident.

February 22, 2012—Five people were killed in at a Korean health spa in Norcross, Georgia, when a man opened fire inside the facility in an act suspected to be related to domestic violence.

February 26, 2012—Multiple gunmen began firing into a nightclub crown in Jackson, Tennessee, killing one person and injuring 20 others.

February 27, 2012—Three students at Chardon High School in rural Ohio were killed when a classmate opened fire.

March 8, 2012—Two people were killed and seven wounded at a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when a gunman entered the hospital with two semiautomatic handguns and began firing.

March 31, 2012—A gunman opened fire on a crowd of mourners at a North Miami, Florida, funeral home, killing two people and injuring 12 others.

April 2, 2012—A 43-year-old former student at Oikos University in Oakland, California, walked into his former school and killed seven people, “execution-style.” Three people were wounded.

April 6, 2012—Two men went on a deadly shooting spree in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shooting black men at random in an apparently racially motivated attack. Three men died and two were wounded.

May 29, 2012—A man in Seattle, Washington, opened fire in a coffee shop and killed five people and then himself.

July 9, 2012—At a soccer tournament in Wilmington, Delaware, three people were killed, including a 16-year-old player and the event organizer, when multiple gunmen began firing shots, apparently targeting the organizer.

July 20, 2012—James Holmes enters a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opens fire with a semi-automatic weapon; twelve people are killed and fifty-eight are wounded.

August 5, 2012—A white supremacist and former Army veteran shot six people to death inside a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before killing himself.

August 14, 2012—Three people were killed at Texas A&M University when a 35-year-old man went on a shooting rampage; one of the dead was a police officer.

September 27, 2012—A 36-year-old man who had just been laid off from Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, Minnesota, entered his former workplace and shot five people to death, and wounded three others before killing himself.

October 21, 2012—45-year-old Radcliffe Frankin Haughton shot three women to death, including his wife, Zina Haughton, and injured four others at a spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin, before killing himself.

December 11, 2012—A 22-year-old began shooting at random at a mall near Portland, Oregon, killing two people and then himself.

December 14, 2012—One man, and possibly more, murders a reported twenty-six people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, including twenty children, before killing himself.

This is not an isolated incident. The United States is a sick country, and I don't know if banning guns is the cure, but more guns certainly isn't.

But back to cut's point. It would be a lot easier to have a debate if you guns rights advocates actually were a bit more intellectually honest. Just go ahead and say it:

"The twenty murdered children in Newtown, CT are acceptable collateral damage for my right to own a gun, and I'm perfectly okay with that as the status quo."

Which one of you is going to be man enough to put your name next to that quote first?

But back to cut's point. It would be a lot easier to have a debate if you guns rights advocates actually were a bit more intellectually honest. Just go ahead and say it:

"The twenty murdered children in Newtown, CT are acceptable collateral damage for my right to own a gun, and I'm perfectly okay with that as the status quo."

Which one of you is going to be man enough to put your name next to that quote first?

What is odd is that very few are willing to admit that this tragedy could have been prevented at best or been less severe had one or more of those teachers been a law abiding citizen that was armed.

What you left out in your long list of deadly shootings is that those weren't committed by responsible gun owners.....if those whack jobs couldn't obtain a gun legally, they would have still acquired one by either stealing it or buying it from another criminal element.

Law abiding citizens are called such because they obey the law...psychos and criminals unfortunately do not. And when seconds count, remember that the police are minutes away.

As for how I feel...read my avatar. My right to own a gun is what protects your right to tell me I can't own one. I carry a gun because I'm not strong enough to carry a cop around all day....and my life is more valuable to me than the thug trying to harm me. If he valued life at all, he would never have broken into my home, or tried to jack my car, or kill me.

What is odd is that very few are willing to admit that this tragedy could have been prevented at best or been less severe had one or more of those teachers been a law abiding citizen that was armed.

What you left out in your long list of deadly shootings is that those weren't committed by responsible gun owners.....if those whack jobs couldn't obtain a gun legally, they would have still acquired one by either stealing it or buying it from another criminal element.

Law abiding citizens are called such because they obey the law...psychos and criminals unfortunately do not. And when seconds count, remember that the police are minutes away.

As for how I feel...read my avatar. My right to own a gun is what protects your right to tell me I can't own one. I carry a gun because I'm not strong enough to carry a cop around all day....and my life is more valuable to me than the thug trying to harm me. If he valued life at all, he would never have broken into my home, or tried to jack my car, or kill me.

So, yes or no? Are those mass shootings acceptable collateral damage? Are you okay with the status quo?

So, yes or no? Are those mass shootings acceptable collateral damage? Are you okay with the status quo?

No, mass murder is not acceptable, but it does happen, and the US Constitution gives me the right to arm myself to ensure it doesn't happen to me or my kids, or anyone else...

Richard Speck killed about a dozen nursing students with a knife and his bare hands, so will you admit you want to continue to have a butcher knife and those nurses are collateral damage? don't be stupid man....

You keep trying to paint people into your template...

once again, if there was one or more law abiding citizens who were armed, those mass shootings are probably prevented or at the least, the death toll greatly reduced...because that ****ing clown that shot those kids might have gotten the principal...he'd have been the next person shot and killed